Kelly Slater: Surfing Icon

 Graham spends the day with the most decorated professional surfer ever, 11-time world champion, Kelly Slater. Slater - both the youngest and oldest surfer to win world titles - opens up about bringing surfing to the Summer Olympics, coping with his father’s battle with alcoholism and a recent near-death experience during a surfing accident.  The episode debuted nationwide in 2016.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This week on the In Depth podcast, Kelly Slater.
Sometimes I just can't sleep because I'm so excited about
surfing the next day. I've had the privilege of
sitting down with the surfing legend twice, first in 2016 at
his Malibu Airstream and again in 2019 at his Surf Ranch.
We start our chat from 2016, when Slater opened up about his

(00:21):
difficult childhood. I think my mom raised the three
of us boys on $2000 a month and not much help from my dad.
And the most dangerous place he's ever surfed.
Is it shallow? It's an intense wave.
Quite a number of people have died there.
But we begin our conversation discussing the surfers hectic
schedule. All right, so I obviously have

(00:44):
to start by giving you a hard time about your schedule just
based on the difficulty of getting this set up.
How often does your schedule change?
My schedule changes every morning based on the surf,
basically. You know, I mean, as you as
you've seen and and yeah, I'm sorry for that.
As you've seen, though, the surf's unpredictable and my life

(01:09):
is based around what the waves are doing.
And that sounds like some burnout thing from the 70s or
something, but it's really true.I mean, I basically get up and
live my life according to what what the surf's doing.
So you know, we've. I mean you, you could get up,
you know, 1 morning in Hawaii and see the weather such in

(01:30):
Australia where you hop on a plane that day and fly to
Australia, something like that. Dramatic.
Had we not had this interview lined up for today, I would have
done that the other day. Really.
Yeah. The waves are really good in
Hawaii. It was giant all week.
Last week we held that Daddy I Cal event and then I probably
would have gotten on a flight the day after that and chase

(01:51):
this. Well, there was a a big cyclone
that hit Fiji and they moved down between Fiji and New
Zealand and there was great surfin Australia all week.
That's kind of how it goes. Does that eat you up that you
aren't there right now? No, it's all right.
This this well disappeared and actually the all the footage I
saw, it was amazing, but it was so crowded that I probably would
have been there frustrated anyways, there's literally
hundreds of people in the water.You know, everyone knew about

(02:13):
this well, and with that being said, there's always some sort
of secrets around where there's fewer people somewhere and you
can go have fun some at some other spot and.
How do you go about finding those places?
Oh, you just know about them, oryou hear about them, or, you
know, you just think a little differently.
I mean, generally most people will know where the best spot is
and where the way it's going to be sort of happening.

(02:34):
But you know, if you want to lower your standards a little,
better take a risk somewhere else that doesn't get good very
often, you can always look for something else and find
something unique. How often do you travel?
I pretty much just permanently travel.
People ask me where I live, I say in a suitcase, but I, I
mean, I have a home in Australia, I have a home in
Florida, I have a home in Hawaiiand I have a place here in

(02:58):
California that I stay at. So I have actually have two
place in California I stay at. So I'm just sort of set up and
every every other place I go, I have friends that have homes and
I stay with them usually. Does the travel ever get old?
Yeah, the travel gets old. I mean, after 32 years, you
mentioned of doing it, that's it.

(03:20):
There's a certain monotony to totraveling and competing at the
same places every year, but I think the excitement of travel
never disappears. I mean, I always said if I
wasn't a surfer, I'd probably get a job like doing bodywork or
being a chef or, you know, something I can get up and move
and go and and check out a different place in the world.

(03:40):
Where are your favorite places now to travel to?
Probably, you know, I always sayFiji's my favorite place because
it just is. The waves are great, people are
super nice. It's warm.
I mean, I can't find, I can't really find anything about Fiji
I don't like or love. And unfortunately, they got hit

(04:02):
by a giant cyclone the other dayand there was 26 people killed
or something like that. But the area I go to, no one was
injured. But yeah, it's a it's just a
beautiful country and literally the nicest people on earth.
I understand you're known to show up at the airport like
minutes before an international flight will take off.

(04:26):
Yeah, I am. I get.
I actually get. Really.
Been some close calls with your agent Terry.
Oh, I miss call. I miss flights pretty often,
but. Oh, you really do?
Yeah, I missed some flights. We missed one the other day but
it was an inner island flight inHawaii and we there was another
1/2 an hour later but. What's the worst one you've
missed? No, the worst one, remember

(04:47):
there was one I got to going to Chile and I don't know how they
let me on the flight, but from where we're flying out of, we're
flying from LA to Chile. And a friend of mine was on the
flight and we were in Brentwood and we, we left Brentwood 2
hours before the flight. And it's usually, you know, if
there's no traffic, it's like a 20 minute drive.
And it took us an hour and 45 minutes.
Got there 15 minutes before the flight was supposed to take off.

(05:08):
And the manager of the flight islike, no problem, no problem.
But I don't know the guy. The guy surfed or something, The
manager and we pulled up at the curb.
I think it was 16 minutes till take off at international.
And I walked in and I was like stressing out.
And the guy's like, no, no, no, it's OK, it's OK.
No problem. We'll get you on.

(05:29):
He's just like super cool, that and guy.
Explain why you travel and and pack a heavy water filtration
system. I occasionally will carry AI
have this suitcase full of a filter system, filtration system
for water that I do take just toknow I'm getting clean water
where wherever I go might be in Brazil one week and then South

(05:53):
Africa the next week or whatever.
And just to kind of have a consistency in your water.
You know, if you, you get somewhere and you don't want to
get a bunch of bottles of plastic bottles of water.
So that's kind of the, the idea behind it.
Keep consistent hydration and, and not not create too much
garbage. And you can use them in
municipal water source instead of like, you know, just having

(06:15):
to go buy a bottle of water all day.
Why do you pack food? No, I'll travel like when I go
to Fiji for instance, I'll travel half my suitcases just.
Food and what do you put in it? I don't know, just whatever I
like in my diet, you know, I mean, I'll, I'll have like a big
thing of chia seeds and hemp seeds and I'll have, I don't

(06:36):
know, snack bars I like and gluten free pancake mix.
And I don't know, I'll, I'll take sometimes a couple gallons
of hemp milk or almond milk or something.
So I don't know, I just want to get some more than I know that
I'm sort of like with familiar things around me.
I I really think it's just to tomake me feel comfortable when I

(06:57):
get somewhere. I I understand that there is at
least some digestive science behind your diet.
Yeah, I know. I'm, I'm pretty into it.
I'm kind of a food geek myself. I try to go mostly gluten free.
I, I try to eat as organically as possible and as clean as

(07:20):
possible. And yeah, I don't know, I mean,
when I was, when I was younger, I, I felt like, you know, I, I
had so much sugar and crap in mydiet that, you know, we just, it
would just affect me kind of strangely when I was a kid.
So, you know, I used to get like, I don't know, when I was a

(07:42):
kid, I used to get these boils like sores on my body sometimes.
And I think it was because I just had too much sugar and milk
and crap in my diet. So I pretty much cut almost all
dairy out of my diet at this point.
I don't really eat much corn or wheat or grains.
I try to just stay away from gluten.

(08:03):
And I, you know, I've done bloodblood tests to see what I'm
allergic to. So, you know, cut out certain
foods and try to get the body working as efficiently as
possible. How do you think that's helped
you? My well, I used to have pretty
bad sinus problems all the time.I used to get like a sinusitis

(08:24):
where I got it so bad before I had to go to the hospital a
couple times. I used to have, I think it was
from a corn allergy that I almost checked myself into the
into the hospital in the emergency room once over New
Year's because I can barely breathe.

(08:46):
And it was soon after that I gota blood test done.
And corn was like one of the most highly allergic things I
had in my diet. So yeah.
And it's something I didn't know.
And my favorite thing was these red hot blue corn chips that I
would eat like a bag or two of every single day.
And I would eat that with avocados.
And I would just like, I would get these kind of asthmatic

(09:07):
things happening and I couldn't understand why.
And then after I got the blood test and it said corn was like
one of the highest allergens in my diet.
So, you know, sometimes you justdon't know. 11 time world
champion, both the youngest everand the oldest ever to do so.
But there was a a columnist who tried to put your feats into

(09:29):
context and I thought it was really great.
It was the best one I read. And it goes.
I cannot think of another athlete who's matched Slater's
genius for such a long period oftime.
Not Kareem or Wilt or Russell. Not Schumacher.
Not Gretzky or Nicholas or Bolt.Not Tyson or Ali or Lt. or
Manning. Not Koufax or Babe Ruth, not

(09:49):
Magic or Bird or the Pistol. To find the proper analogy, you
need to look outside of sports. Slater is just surfing what
Sinatra was to crooning. That was kind of cool.
That's amazing. How much longer could you see
yourself going for? To me, there's just two things.
It's you know, your body holdingup and it's your mind being

(10:12):
open. And, and you also have to be
able to think ahead of the curvea little bit.
You have to see where things aregoing and be able to do to kind
of predict that or at least go in that direction, you know, but
it's different. Everyone's everyone's got their
own unique perspective and pointof view in life to to have the

(10:35):
inspiration and that excitement every morning like you have when
you're a kid is really hard to do.
You know you got to. And you still have that.
Not every day, no, no. But sometimes, you know,
sometimes I just can't sleep because I'm so excited about
surfing the next day. But no, I don't have it the same
as when I was a kid. But I think it's attainable.
I think it's definitely, you know, as you go through life,

(10:58):
you collect things and in your brain, you know, it's like it's
getting filled up with things. And, you know, you got to get
rid of the bad things and keep the good things and leave space
there and also be inspired by some other goal besides, you
know, just what you're going to do tomorrow.
It's, you know, other people. And it's kind of a bigger
picture of things that you want to kind of feed from and sort of

(11:23):
get nourished off of, I guess. So yeah, I think in order to do
that, you you have to just, you have to be able to let go of
certain things that are that areholding you back, you know, your
mental filters. And provided you could do that
and continue to do that, then there's really no one didn't
sight. No, there's no one's an insight.

(11:45):
I I I like in surfing to martialarts because I mean, I've always
had a love of martial arts. You know, every who didn't love
Bruce Lee as a kid, You know who, who hasn't always, who
hasn't watched, you know, Kung Fu movies and, and just had
these ideas when they're a kid, they want it, you know,
especially boys, you know, especially when you're a little

(12:05):
kid, you want to kick and fight and do flips and blah, blah.
And so when I was a kid, I, I got into, I got into karate for
a little while and I've always had the idea that surfing is
like a martial art. You know, I don't think that you
should get worse as you get older.
I mean, there's a physical barrier where if you have

(12:25):
injuries and you can't beat beatthem, then yeah, you have,
there's, there's something therethat's physically blocking you.
But you know, you, you should get better as you get older, not
like you're going to get worse because your body's failing you.
You, there should be different levels and layers of knowledge
that you have that you can always draw from.
And you know, I think it's most in surfing, it's most evident in

(12:49):
big waves because you look at all the best big wave guys in
the world, they're in their 30s and 40s.
You could argue even some of them are in their 50s.
So those are guys who have so much time and experience in the
water, in the ocean, in the elements, that they, they just
know how to make the right decisions and how to pick the
right waves. And they're comfortable enough
after years and years and years of, of doing it to know what

(13:12):
they what to expect. And, you know, but in the fast
twitch kind of young man's game of, you know, aerials and
competing and, you know, small waves, you know, it's just, it's
natural. The young kids are more excited
and they're they're quicker and you know, you have to work

(13:32):
training your body to be fast and keep up and keep your
rotation, keep your flexibility.What do you find to be the most
difficult part of holding on to your physical skills into your
mid 40s? Holding on your physical skills,
I think for me it's, I think it's a number of things.
It's number one, it's keeping anopen mind to change.

(13:54):
It's, you know, allowing the fact that whatever you're doing
is going to pass you by, It's going to change.
The game is going to change. If you're doing something
physical, you know, if you're, if you, you know, like for
instance, I'm a UFC fan. I love watching UFC fights.
That game changes so fast. The style, you know, at first it
was if you didn't know jujitsu, you were going to lose.
And then guys learned how to defend that.

(14:15):
And then it became more of the the wrestlers became the
dominant guys. Now it's kind of like guys who
can switch it up and throw fights from throw punches or
kicks from any angle. So you know, it changes really
fast and surfing, it's gone a lot more to the air game, you
know, aerials and and rotations.That being said, you always have
to have that sort of power base in your surfing.

(14:36):
But you know, you have to have an open mind to that.
You know, even if you're at the top, even if you had the best
year of your life, you got to you got to realize that there's
something you can do better. You got to be able to change
that. Yeah.
So I mean, it's, it's all about longevity too.

(14:57):
You know, you don't want to do ought and be doing a bunch of
things that are going to get youhurt.
So I haven't had any too many bad injuries in my life.
I got a few chronic things. I got a knee issue and I got a a
lower back issue. I got a a torn hip from years
ago. I got less scar tissue in that.
It was funny and preparing for this interview, I was reading,
you know, a slew of stories, butone was a 2006 New York Times

(15:20):
story that wrote about your potential retirement.
And obviously, that's now a decade ago.
Yeah. Why do you think you're still
competing? Competing is kind of just my
stage for what I what I'm skilled at really.
I enjoy, I enjoy, there's certain aspects of it I enjoy,
but it, it keeps a lot of what Ilove to do relevant, I guess,

(15:45):
because it pushed me to, to increase my level all the time
and to be working on that. I think when you're good at
something, it's hard to kind of just walk away from it and do
something else maybe you're not as good at.
And I, you know, also I, I really love the travel, the idea
of stopping doing this. I'm just the idea that I miss

(16:05):
all the places and experiences we have and all the place I've
gotten to go over the years. But I mean, I can still go to
those places obviously, but I don't know, the competition kind
of helps me to push my level 2, you know, to get up in the
morning and have a goal and, andto see how far I can push that.
I think the, the idea of pushingit beyond that.

(16:26):
I mean, I don't want, I always said when I was 40, I would
never be on tour. And you know, I, I can't think
of my brain at all that when I'm50, I'd be on tour.
But the idea that I could surf events and be relevant and
potentially be a threat at an event at 50 years old feels kind
of cool, you know? So.
Business is obviously increasingly becoming more a

(16:47):
part of your life. I know way back when you turned
down a Nike offer that would have more than doubled what you
were getting from your sponsor Quicksilver at the time that you
would have had to draw maybe. To be honest with you, I don't
think no. To be honest, I don't think I
did OK. Then the story.

(17:07):
Was wrong but there there there was you know Nike Nike made a
little play in surfing here and there but they they never were
were able to really get a a foothold or a stronghold in
surfing like they were in other sports.
You know, Nike's Nike's image fits so well how many other
sports? And with surfing, it's it's a

(17:27):
little different. There's a, there's kind of an
endemic market strategy that kind of when you grew up with
these brands that were produced were were created by surfers and
in the surf world, there's some sort of attachment there that it
kind of like a, a mold that can't be broken in some way.
So. How do you go about evaluating

(17:48):
offers? At this point, you know, when I
was younger, obviously, if, if Igot an offer from when I was 15,
I got an offer from Quicksilver and they wanted to pay me $5000
a year for travel or for whatever.
And I, you know, I had no money or whatever.

(18:12):
I just thought, wow, that's so cool, $5000 a year.
I can't believe it. I was like gasping on the phone,
like covering the phone. My gosh.
And it was so exciting for me, you know, like growing up in
this little, little city and, and doing this thing I love and
all of a sudden for somebody wants to pay me for it.
You know, the, all you see is dollar signs.
You know, that's, that's the first thing comes to mind.

(18:33):
And then as you, as you follow that, the dollar signs, you
know, you're obviously going to go towards what's bigger and
bigger and hopefully it'll be with some, some brand or company
that you like as well or you like the people that but all
those things evolve in. And, and for me at this point to
do a sponsorship, it's got to besomething that's in line with my

(18:54):
philosophies on life, on sustainability.
You know, if it's food, it's gotto be something that I feel
healthy or something I would eator buy or use myself anyways.
I think that's kind of the same with any other products or
things I work to endorse. It's got to be something that
makes sense in my life. You know, I did get a few offers

(19:15):
from like drink companies and they weren't in line with the
things that I, I think about health and they weren't
educating anyone about health. So I didn't, I didn't take those
offers. And in fact, I started my own
drink company with some friends based around what we thought was
good. So yeah, instead of just going

(19:37):
after the dollars, I was able towork on something that I felt a
lot more strongly about. How did the idea for the surf
park come about? The idea for the surf park came
about. I had a a guy who's to shape my
surf Wars name, Matt Keckley, call me, he said.
You got to see this thing I saw and eventually anyways, he

(19:58):
showed me this video of this wave this guy had created, this
idea for a wave this guy had created in this pool that was, I
guess to most easily describe it, it's like a doughnut shaped
pool. And it would there was an outer
wall that would that had these moving parts and they would kind
of line up in unison and create these like weight.
You know, it was like a wave going around the outside of this

(20:19):
pool with these Pistons, right? And it was.
I don't know, I saw this video and my brain just, I couldn't
turn it off. I'm like, we got to make this
thing. This is incredible and.
Easier said than done. Easier said than done.
Yeah. Yeah.
Long story short, we started to look into the the actual
technology to create the swell. And we realized that that

(20:42):
technology wasn't going to be the one that would work for us,
that didn't have as much energy as we as we hoped, and it
wouldn't create the wave we wanted.
So we kind of evolved the technology from there.
The the idea of how to make a swell kind of quietly kept
working on it for years and years.
Obviously now it's 2016. That was like 2005 when we

(21:05):
started this. About 2 1/2, three years ago, my
partner said to me, he said, look, if we're ever going to get
this thing off the ground, you and I need to just put our money
up and build one of these things, buy some land, make this
wave, see if it works, or you just go out in a blaze of glory
failing. So I was like, all right, let's

(21:26):
just do it. Let's just let's just figure
this thing out. What's your ultimate goal with
it? My ultimate goal on it is just
to have a lot of fun. I mean.
But you, you don't. Invest this amount of time and
money to just have a lot of fun.Yeah, well, yeah, you do.
I mean, what else do you do it for?

(21:47):
I didn't, I didn't do this thingat all.
I'm going to make a bunch of money off this thing.
You know, it's to me, it's, it'slike a childhood dream in a way.
You know, when I was a kid, my brother and I, well, we used to
go to Wet and wild and we used to go try to body surf in the
pool there and stuff and imaginewe could surf in it.
And then when, when I was about 14, my, my brother Sean was 17,

(22:09):
we rode for this company called Sundeck.
And they, they used to send us on these little promo tours to
malls and blah, blah. And they sent us out to Texas
one time to go surfing this wavepool.
And so Sean and I got surfed this wave pool for like a couple
days and we're doing like a, an exhibition and all these people
in Texas that had no idea what surfing was.
And we were in somewhere in Houston, I think, or San

(22:33):
Antonio, I, I don't even remember.
But there's this wave pool and they sent us there to go
surfing. The wave was awful, but it was
so fun to go surf this pool justhe and I and there was like
hundreds of people watching us. And, and actually probably the
best thing about it was we foundlike 100 bucks floating in the
pool. My brother, my, somebody's on
the edge of the pool and, and, and looks down and goes, hey,

(22:54):
can you get that, that bill for me right there?
I see a bill floating and my brother grabbed it and handed it
was like a $5.00 bill. So in between ways, there's like
a few minutes in between ways and we started looking around
and all of a sudden a $5.00 bill, a $20 bill, a $1.00 bill.
We started finding all this money.
So I think we found like $73 in the pool.
You know, people just have pockets empty but.

(23:15):
Could you see the day where there's surf league competition
at the wave pool or even one dayin the Olympics?
Yeah. Well, one of the guys we work
with, when we had a first meeting with him, he said, you
know, I think you got, I think you need kind of like an idea
about like your ultimate goal with this thing.

(23:35):
And he said, you know, maybe, maybe that goal when talking to
people you want to work with is we think this can get surfing in
the Olympics in order to, to have a consistent fair, not even
for the Olympics, but even for surf competitions to, to have a
repeatable, you know, comparing apples to apples kind of

(23:56):
competition where it's more of an objective thing and less
subjective then I, I think this is the way to do it.
I think that we could create a, a good enough, high enough, high
quality enough wave in order to make the, the playing field
totally fair for people. You know, it's not like you got

(24:18):
the lucky wave that came or he read the conditions right, which
is a obviously, I think a huge skill in surfing as well.
Reading the ocean right, picking, making the right
choices. There's a, there's a lot to
that. I think that does define people
who know the ocean better than the next guy.
But, you know, just just to be able to compare the actual
skills on a wave, I think it's easier.

(24:38):
It would be much easier to do ifyou had a good repeatable
quality wave. So, yeah, I think that we could
hold competitions. I know, I think we're going to.
I don't even think we're going to.
I know we're going to hold competitions in the pool at some
point, maybe sort of exhibitionary kind of thing to
start. But I've had literally thousands
of people inquire to me, how do I get in that thing?

(25:00):
You know, the day after day after I put it online, two days
after I put it on, like 'cause it had soaked in a little bit
actually, and I had already had to think about it, 'cause I got
hundreds if not more requests from people, friends and people
I didn't know to surf the thing.It had to be a cool feeling.
It was incredible. In fact, I, I don't know if I
could ever repeat that or ever have that happen in any other

(25:22):
way. I felt like we found gold for
the first time or something. You know, like surfers gold.
I don't know what it was, but the the feeling was that we had
sort of achieved this dream for so many people.
They saw it and they were like, wow, I imagine that, but I never
got my mind around it. And now it's actually it exists.

(25:43):
You were ten, I think your dad was the coach of your football
team at the time, and he actually let you skip football
practice, go surfing. Why was that such kind of a
pivotal moment for you mentally then?
This is probably like in 1982 orsomething and, and you know,
surfing was probably professional surfing was like 6

(26:08):
years old at the time. You know, I, I think the first
world tour year was 1977. So 5-6 years down the track.
It's not like professional surfing is some big potential
life to live. You know, I think the person who
won the world title the first year made like $2000 that year

(26:29):
in prize money. You know, there wasn't a
lucrative thing. It wasn't like going to play
football or baseball or basketball.
You know, I was a pretty good football player and those were
potentially huge careers to follow.
Was the random, but I was a small kid.
I wasn't going to be like some big football player and and
probably be successful at that. But I I think my dad allowing me

(26:50):
to skip football practice kind of gave me a green light to go
and surf as much as I want. And your mom would let you skip
school sometimes to go occasionally.
And, and as context, I mean, I think when you finished high
school, you finished 7th academically in your class.
So even if you were getting to skip school occasionally, I

(27:10):
mean, there was still enough of an importance you put on
academics that it wasn't negatively.
Impacting I I I was responsible with my schooling.
My mom would, my mom would allowus to skip one day per semester
per semester to go surf, go, go.If there's contest, yeah, we
could miss more days. And you know, if we were, I knew
that if I was a good student, mypresent, my my principal at the

(27:32):
school was going to let me go and and give me extra days off.
What sort of mental games would you play with yourself when you
were out there surfing as a kid?I still play similar games.
Actually, the other day I, I wassurfing and, and I would just
like set these weird little goals.

(27:52):
You know, I'd have goals in mind, like I want to win a
certain contest or win a world title or whatever it was.
But whenever it was, and I wouldsay like if I can catch this
wave right here, that doesn't look like I can catch it, I'm
going to win the world title this year or I'm going to win
that contest next week or I'm going to, you know, something
great is going to happen. In future, this is when you're a
kid or even. President when I was a kid.
But it's present day too, you know, I actually was kind of

(28:16):
thinking that the other day in my head too.
Like if I catch this wave, you know, I don't know, I don't want
to talk about it 'cause it's like present time.
But you know, I, I, I still havethe same thoughts.
You know, when I surf, I'm stilllike a little kid and I'm, yeah,
it's just surfing to me, kind of, I don't know.

(28:38):
There's just nothing more I lovein the world, you know, every,
everything I do all this stuff, all like all this.
I mean, I'm only meeting you because I love surfing.
You know, everything that's comeinto my life, I would say 99% of
things that come into my life are all because of surfing,
because I just, it's my passion.It's what I love to do.
There's nothing, there's nothingmore fun than me on earth than

(28:59):
to go surfing. So you started surfing around 3
years old. By 14 years old, you're beating
professionals that have surfed longer than you are old.
What do you think allowed you tobecome so talented at surfing so
quickly? I think talent comes from, it's
a, it's a, it's sort of a recipe.
It's like a concoction of things.

(29:22):
You know, sometimes people just have good timing.
Sometimes people have a natural talent, sometimes they get lucky
and there's all these sort of things that can happen.
I think a bunch of those parts of the formula were given to me
in my life. So, you know, I think I was
naturally talented. I think I was, I think it was
gifted with understanding the ocean and it comes natural to

(29:44):
me. You know, my, my dad was a real
water person and just growing upat the beach, watching waves,
watching guys surf, all that kind of stuff, that became real
natural to me to understand how to maneuver on a wave and fit
myself into that as a, as if I was a, a natural part of that
energy and natural part of the, the motion that's happening in

(30:05):
the ocean. So I was, I always felt like
there was AI. Even now, I always feel like
there's a perfect way to be In Sync with what's happening in
the ocean. You know, people look at the
ocean, they don't know anything about it and they're like,
that's crazy looking. But once you put yourself in
this situation, you realize there's a flow to everything.
There's a there's a, there's patterns and everything in

(30:25):
nature and you know, it's deciphering those and then
putting your own spin on it thatis important.
I think beyond that, I think mentally or emotionally, I was
in a certain situation that caused me to want to be really
good to maybe, I don't know, make everything else seem better

(30:46):
in my life. And and, you know,
competitively, I even in school,I was always able to win things,
you know, like running races or I don't know, I could just, I
always felt like I could set my mind on something and, and

(31:07):
achieve it like I could, I can visualize things and trust that
they're going to happen. I think everyone can do that.
But maybe some people don't put the trust in that they're going
to happen. But you know, I had one happen
to me the other day. I just, I can feel I wanted a
certain thing to happen. I was surfing that contest in
Hawaii and I just wanted to get a tube.

(31:29):
You know, we talked about Brock Little who do recently passed
away. Brock was one of the biggest
mentors in my life of everyone I've ever met.
And in 1990, he got a barrel at Waimea and it still is like one
of the all time standout waves as far as surfers are concerned.
He had two waves that day, one big giant when he fell on and
another one he got barreled on. And I was just in this

(31:51):
connoisseur the other day thinking I just want to get a
barrel for Brock, you know? And it was my very last wave
with about 5 minutes, 10 minutesleft in the heat.
There's the last wave I was ableto catch in the contest and I
got a little tube and I don't know, I just felt like I could
feel it was going to happen beforehand, You know, I don't
know if that's a miracle or if that's just natural.

(32:12):
You know, I, I, I don't think it's like a miracle.
I think it's like, I, I think what I was saying about natural,
natural order to things, You know, either you're aware and
tuned into things or you're not.And sometimes, sometimes I feel
like I'm not and sometimes I feel like I am.
And the other day something justhit me and I'm like, I'm going
to get this wave and just kind of happened.
So it's, I don't think it's anything amazing.

(32:35):
I think it's just, I think it's there to be had, you know, for
everyone at all times and accessto, you know, people talk about
it in different ways, like beingin the moment, being in the now
or living, knowing the secret orwhatever it is, you know,
whatever how however it is you perceive that thing.
I think I, I really think all things are built available to us

(32:55):
in the moment and you know, we're either aware or not aware
of them. Your parents got divorced.
Your mom, you know, was basically responsible for taking
care of you and your two brothers, and times were tough
financially. How often would you move condo
to condo growing up? We lived in this, we lived in

(33:17):
one house till I was 11, I think11 or 12.
And then we moved, moved to another condo for about 3 years
and then we moved to another house for a couple years and
another house for about 6 months.
And we moved around a little bit.
I think we lived in 123455 houses between 11 and I don't

(33:40):
know, 18 years old or something like that.
So we weren't like moving a couple times a year or anything
like that, but. Your mom was telling me she
thought it was the day the Challenger blew up.
January 28th, 1986. It was a particularly cold day.
Yeah, really cold that day. And you and your brothers needed
coats to go out, but she didn't have enough money for three

(34:05):
coats for each of you guys to have a coat.
And so she kept you guys home from school that day.
And just looking back on it, shesaid she just remembers the
embarrassment and the humiliation of, you know, not
being able to send, you know, her kids to school.

(34:25):
You know, you mentioned like heat or hot water.
I mean, those weren't things that you could kind of rely on
consistently during that period.Right.
I'll defend my mom's memory herea little bit.
The reason we didn't go to school the day the shuttle blew
up was because we got back from California late the night

(34:47):
before. And I'd I'd actually been in, my
brother and I had been in a surfcontest in California.
But it was it was the coldest day of the year that year.
We were just tired and slept in.But yeah, there, there were
numerous occasions where we didn't have the money for
things, you know, and one of them was one of them was in

(35:12):
1986. That same year was the the world
titles, the world amateur titlesin England.
We didn't have the money to get there.
I didn't have the sponsorship toget there.
And my mom had this 1938 Gibson gold top banjo that she played
and she actually pawned it to get us the money to go on the

(35:36):
the trip. And so at the time, I didn't
think much about it. I'm sure it stung her, you know,
but I didn't even know. She just, you know, did what she
had to do as a parent to get me and my brother to England.
I think she sold it for 600 bucks or something.
And that thing's probably worth like 30 grand now.

(35:56):
Wow. So actually if you know, if you
know anyone who has one, let me know.
I wouldn't mind purchasing 1. How often did she work and what
were the varying jobs that she held?
My mom had a bunch of different jobs throughout the years.
You know, I mean, at one point when I was about, I guess when I
was like 8, she became a firefighter, an EMT.

(36:17):
She put herself through school to go and do that.
I think she was the first femalefirefighter in our county.
Then she did that for like 2 years.
She got sexually harassed by hercaptain and ended up quitting
the job. She became a bartender for a
little while and she she was bartending at the bar when my

(36:38):
dad used to drink a lot. So she got it.
She kind of got a chance to keepan eye on him and probably get
him a few free beers. So it was cheaper for us, you
know, And then she worked at theright around that time also.
She worked at the, the place where actually, I think it was

(36:58):
before that, but she had worked at this little food place at the
beach where I grew up surfing and the.
The Islander. The Islander Hut.
Yeah. And she, she had funny stories
about that because by the end ofthe week, when she would get her
paycheck, she would owe a few dollars for all the money, all
the food we had eaten. So basically she just almost
kept it at a certain level whereshe never, she never made any
money at that job. We ate all of her money

(37:21):
throughout the week on a tab. How do you think his drinking
impacted you growing up? Yeah, it's yeah, alcoholism is
a, a weird thing. You know, my dad didn't drink a
hard liquor. He just liked to drink beer.
And. But he would drink beer all day
long and he would think he had two beers and he could barely

(37:42):
walk, you know. And you know, he wasn't like
abusive to us or anything like that.
It wasn't like some crazy drunk dad.
It was just like my dad was likethe fun drunk dad.
In fact, he, you know, when, when my dad was drinking, he,
he'd come home and wrestle with us.
And I don't know, most the time I think about my dad, it's just

(38:03):
funny. Like my dad was like kind of the
class clown in a way, you know, And he was a super fun dad.
He liked to surf, he liked to, he liked to dive, he liked to go
camping. He, you know, we'd, we'd go into
the river and find clams and, you know, have barbecues.
And he just loved to be outdoors, you know, But, you

(38:26):
know, he didn't have any awareness whatsoever about his
issue or how it could be fixed or, you know, he didn't.
He didn't have a very good example in his family of
parents. You know, his parents split up
when he was young. His mom was married numerous
times. She died when he was pretty
young still. But you know, my dad impacted me

(38:49):
in different ways. You know, I sort of look at my
dad as a, as a couple different guys.
Before he passed away, he said he goes, you know, by the time I
was 8 years old, I knew I wantedto be a father.
I knew I wanted to have kids. And, you know, so he was kind of
telling me how important it was that he had children, how
appreciative he was before he passed away, that he had the

(39:10):
three of us, Well, the four of us, he, he has, we have 1/2
brother as well, who's older than us.
But on the other hand, he, you know, he showed me AI think I
learned from well, he was, he was a lot of fun.
He was, he wasn't a sincere guy very often, but when he was, he
was, he was very sincere. You know, there's a really fun

(39:33):
side to my dad. I think everyone to a man,
probably almost every single person my dad ever met, they
liked him, you know, but some people didn't, you know, think
he was the greatest guy towards my mom and, and he was, I don't
know, he taught me in different ways, unfortunately, you know,

(39:55):
some of the ways he taught me was was by screwing up and other
ways it was by being funny and being a good dad.
How well do you recall sleeping on the concrete driveway?
Oh, that's like yesterday. Yeah, I remember that really
clearly. What do you remember from it?
Well, my parents were getting these sort of knocked down, drag
out screaming fights once in a while.

(40:16):
And it seemed to be, I don't know how often it was, you know,
looking back, it seemed like it was all the time, but it, but it
might have been like once a month.
I I don't really remember exactly.
There was just one time I remember it was getting really
bad and, and we were supposed togo to the mall and I was really
excited. We're going to go to the mall
right after dark. And so we were getting ready to
go outside and get in the van and drive and they started

(40:38):
fighting and I just remember them just screaming and
screaming and screaming and, andnext thing you know, I realized
we weren't going to the mall because it was almost 9:00 and
the mall closed at 9 and this price started at like 6 or 7.
And so my brother and I didn't want to go back in the house.
So we just like laid down the concrete.
I remember just laying there in the concrete, kind of my eyes
open, but trying to go to sleep and just listening to them

(40:59):
scream and yell at each other. Your dad passed away 62 years
old after battling cancer for a couple years, and from what I
read, you were angry at him for a long time.
What did it take to get to the space where you were able to let
that anger go before he passed away?
In my early 20s, I realized I was I had a lot of anger with my

(41:22):
dad. I remember particularly in 95, I
was 23 years old. I remember just being having
like nights where I'd go to sleep and I'd be so angry at my
dad. And I talked to my mom about it
one time and and she said she goes, you know, well, what do
you want to do about it? I said, I don't know, I just
want to talk to dad. I want to like ask him these

(41:43):
things. She goes like, you can do
whatever you want, but you're probably not going to get the
answer you're looking for. You know, I just, she was like,
I know your dad so well. You're, you're, he's probably
not going to answer it in a way that's going to answer anything
for you. God, I can't answer yourself.
What do you want to ask him? I don't know, just like why he
drank so much or, you know, why he was the way he was or like,

(42:03):
you know, I, I don't even reallyknow.
I just was, I just had this anger towards him.
And I think my mom saying that kind of resolved that for me
because I think I realized it was probably true.
You know, he probably couldn't answer things for me that I
needed to answer for myself. You know, it's just a case of

(42:24):
kind of growing up and needing to grow into my own skin and
become an adult myself and learning responsibilities that.
And I think part of it was I, there was certain things around
the money issues and certain responsibilities of growing up
that I wanted to have instilled in me without having to think
about it. And I didn't really learn this
thing. So I had to learn them other
ways. But I also realized I had a lot

(42:47):
of father figures around me thatwere really good, that, that
have been great people in my life.
And, and you know, Al Merrick, who made my surfboards for
years, he was a, you know, AL's been such a father figure to me
and such a great person to be around and learn from.
And Bruce Raymond, who was a boss of mine at Quicksilver, you

(43:13):
know, just a couple families in Hawaii.
I used to stay with the Johnson's and the Ike's that
that would, you know, the, the, the dads in those families were
such father figures to me and they were best friends and I
spent a lot of time around them.And I started gravitating as I
got older towards families that were really kind of maybe
lacking the things that our family had.

(43:34):
You know, the parents that were together for a long time and
real loving towards each other and, you know, had an, a real
open communication and that kindof thing.
So I, I, I think, I, I think subconsciously I just started
searching those things out and being able to find them with
other people. And so, yeah.

(43:56):
You, you wrote in your book. There was never a time in my
life that I grew so much in sucha short amount of time.
I stopped thinking the world revolved around me and started
becoming a man and a person. When talking about kind of the
last, you know, couple months ofyour father's life, what about

(44:18):
that period you think kind of allowed you to grow up?
You know, when your parent dies,you, I think you there's a gosh,
how to explain it. It's a it's, you know, one of
the most awful feelings in the world.

(44:39):
There's also this sort of like sense of like, there's just a
sense that you've got to grow upand you got to learn things and
you're, you're sort of forced, you know, there's no direction
to go except for, to, to kind ofanswer things for yourself in
some way. There was always that sense that
I one day I'll ask my dad this or one day he'll tell me this or

(44:59):
I'll learn this from my dad. And you know, there's not,
there's not a whole lot of things that I look back.
Usually somebody says, most people think back in their dad
and they go, my dad taught me this, my dad taught me that or
used to say this. And when I think that about my
dad, I just think of all the funny things he used to say.
My dad didn't really, he never sat us down and said, listen,
kids, you need to, you know, do this with your lives.

(45:20):
You need. In fact, he was, he was almost
completely hands off in that way.
He was, you know, I think, I think in my early 20s, I was
sort of yearning for that fatherfigure.
My my dad had to come through and kind of like rescue me with
this perfect answer of like whatI should do in my life or
something. And I think that's what I
struggled with after having like, financial issues and, and,

(45:45):
you know, relationships fall apart and stuff like that.
But, you know, it became obviouswhen he passed away or just in
that time before that, that wasn't going to happen.
And I was going to have to find those answers elsewhere.
And that was OK, you know. How's being a father been?
But it's been interesting in my life because just because I'm

(46:07):
not a full time dad, I, you know, the whole time my daughter
has been raised by her mother almost 100% in physical time.
And you know, I've been traveling.
So you know when your daughter'sthree and you're traveling
around the world the whole time,you're like, you know, if you're

(46:28):
not coming home every week between contest, you're not
seeing her very much. You know, she can't just jump on
a plane and come visit me. So.
What's the hardest part of that for you?
Hardest part, I think probably the hardest part for me is my
daughter feeling like she doesn't have a dad there all the

(46:49):
time, you know, So, you know, and that that's hard for her
Yeah, I know that was especiallyhard for her when she was
younger. So, yeah, You know, IA lot of
times, a lot of times people have kids and then their career

(47:10):
kind of stops or gets put on hold and, you know, mine didn't,
you know, So I, I think in, in that sense, I probably have a
little bit of guilt about that, you know, 'cause, you know, I,
you know, kids are just innocent, you know, And so they
need to, they need to have adults around them to, you know,

(47:33):
just to physically be there at all times.
And so I think that's probably the toughest thing for me
looking back at, you know, fatherhood.
Your late friend Brock Little said about you.
Kelly wants people to like him so much that he never says no,
but his fame and success don't seem to feel very good to him.

(47:57):
What do you think of that? Brock rarely said something that
wasn't just spot on or true. Yeah, there's there.
There's a lot of things around fame or success that I find.
I, I think if you look at peoplewho are really successful, a lot

(48:20):
of times they're doing it for strange reasons.
And I'd include my include myself in that.
You know, I think, I think when I was young, I really, I just
wanted to be recognized and noticed or something, you know,
it was like a, a sense of insecurity.
I wanted to be good at somethingso that it would like cover up
any of my own personal insecurities.

(48:42):
And so I, I found that I was, I became, I was, I was, I always
felt like I was pretty gifted physically with being able to
learn things or do things. And, you know, surfing became my
craft and, and I felt like if I surfed really good, or I mean,
I'm, I'm kind of psychoanalyzingmyself a little bit here, but
looking back, it makes sense to me.

(49:05):
You know, I felt like it would make any kind of personal or
family pain or insecurities kindof go away if I was really good
at something, you know, and you know, I could, I could always
resort to, to kind of relying onsuccess, physical success or,

(49:27):
you know, competitive success to, to make me feel whole or
something, You know, I don't know, that's a little bit of a,
an overview or whatever, but it,you know, I.
And to what extent have you always found that to be true,
that the success would make you feel whole?
Yeah, I thought that the successwould make me feel whole or

(49:49):
whatever. But, you know, at the end of the
day, you've got to go to bed andlive with yourself, you know,
and, and in your own head. And just because I've had
success or won titles or contests or made money, those
kind of things that that hasn't made any of the problems or
issues that I deal with myself disappear.

(50:11):
You know, it just in some ways it could, it can probably make
them a little more difficult because you're not forced to
deal with things. And, you know, I, I would say
most of most of my conscience and, and that little voice in

(50:32):
the back of my head probably comes from my mom, you know,
because my mom, I think my mom was the one who always taught me
the lessons. You know, she was, she would
always say the things to me thatmy dad probably should have
said, you know, or that I thought my dad should have said.
But my mom was always kind of that voice of reason.
And she was always the one grounding me and, you know, and
keeping me in line. And, and I was much more scared

(50:54):
of my mom than my dad, you know,which should be the other way
around. You know, one time I was telling
my friends a story the other day, I was surfing my home break
when I was a kid. My dad was out with us and one
of my best buddies was surfing. He came to visit me for the
weekend stay at my house and andwe went surfing and this wave
came. I got this perfect wave and my

(51:15):
friend dropped in on me and blocked me on the wave, you
know, just cut. He cut me off and made me fall.
And I came up and I say I was 10years old at 12 years old maybe.
And I started cussing and screaming every every cuss word
I could think I was screaming athim.
And you know, I thought I was socool because I was just like
cussing my friend out. And I look over about 20 feet
away, my dad sitting there looking at me.

(51:36):
He's just like shaking his head.I just held my breath and went
underwater. And I, I just stayed down there
as long as I could. And when I came up, my dad was
about for me to go away from me sitting on this board.
And he's just waiting just patiently.
And I went back underwater and I, like, tried to pretend I
didn't see him. And I came back up and I was
like, OK, well, I guess he's notgoing anywhere.

(51:59):
And I just kind of like looked at him like, oh, what are you
going to do? And he goes, don't ever let me
catch you doing that. Don't ever let me hear you
saying that stuff again or I'm going to tell your mother.
I was like, I don't tell mom, but but you know, my mom had a
sailor's mouth. My, you know, it's hard to get

(52:20):
mad at your kids when you do thesame things, you know?
I mean, you know, it was any parent who like smokes weed or
drinks or whatever, if they findtheir kid doing the same thing,
it'd be hard for them to get madat them.
You know, my mom, my, my mom cussed as well as anyone.
So, but the idea that my mom wasgoing to get me going to, going
to hear what I said to my friendwas so terrifying.

(52:44):
And you know, my, because my dadreally, he was such a cruisy
guy. He, he, you know, he was never
going to do anything to me. He was my dad was like the most
accepting guy in the world and be right there.
Did they yell to me, I love you Kelly Slater?

(53:05):
Is that what he said? There's a whole group of.
People out in the. Stream right now.
I thought I heard something about a sweater.
He loves her sweater. There was a period of time where
just because of your single minded commitment to the sport,
you would go pretty much months I think without calling your mom

(53:27):
or your brothers. What I mean, what was the
mindset during that time? There were times where I felt
like my mom was peering into my life a little too much and like
making two strong opinions of mylife.
So at one point in the mid, you know, there's just this point in
the mid 90s, mid mid late 90s where like a lot of things came

(53:49):
to a head for me in my life. And I was trying to figure out
my relationships and my friendships and my family stuff.
And my mom and I started butting, butting heads really
kind of heavily around it. And at one point I didn't speak
to my mom for like 6 months. And well, you know, I felt like,
I felt like she kind of crossed the line with me telling me how

(54:09):
to live my life. And I, I was trying to figure it
out. And I, you know, I probably
wasn't man enough to just grow up and say, oh, maybe my mom's
right. Or even if your mom's not right,
you got to let tell her she's right, you know, and you got to
just go, let it go. You know, mom, moms are just
trying to look out for you. But you know, I was, I was
struggling with being my own person and, and finding my own
identity. And you know, unfortunately it

(54:34):
it our relationship suffered a bit for a while there.
What was that process like for you of just finding yourself in
your own identity? To find my own identity, I, I
kind of had to, I felt like I had to have a little bit of like
tough love with people around mesomewhat.
Why? Well, because, you know, I was
resentful about the, the, the money situation we had had

(54:57):
where, you know, basically all my money was gone.
And, and then, you know, also trying to have my mom tell me
how to do things and why to do things.
And I, I started, I, I kind of, well, you know, I did Baywatch
and I didn't, I was, well, I wasvery reluctant to do it.
I really didn't want to do it. But my mom and my manager at the
time really wanted me to do it. And, and he more or less just

(55:22):
signed me up without me approving it.
And I don't know how, how that happens, but in my life at that
time that happened. And I was so embarrassed that I
was going to have to do the show.
And I, I just really didn't wantto, I wanted to go surfing and I
wanted to win contests. I wanted to be a professional
surfer and that was it. You know, You know, I wasn't
trying to go be an actor and youknow, surfing wasn't some

(55:46):
launchpad to acting, it was surfing was my craft and that
was what I was good at. I wish I had been a little more
mature and being able to deal with that, but I didn't have the
skills at the time. The danger that's inherent with
your sport. I mean, we can go to the contest
recently in Hawaii, the big Eddie.

(56:07):
How scared were you at times of that?
I don't know. I wasn't real when I was
actually in the contest. Yeah, the the waves were massive
the other day. It was, it was pretty scary, but
it was more scary. The lead up to it, you know, the
night before when you hear, because we called it, what
happens? We call these buoys.
There's these buoys offshore a couple 100 miles off or 10 miles

(56:27):
off or whatever. You know, there's a few
different buoys in the ocean. So you call you, you look up
online or you call these buoys and it tells you the height and
the interval between waves. And from that you can determine
how big the waves are going to be.
So the night before we're calling the buoys and we see
this buoy pop to like 202625 or 26 feet at like 19 seconds,

(56:49):
which basically means it's goingto be freaking huge.
That basically just translates like 50 foot faces, something
like that. Oh, really?
Yeah. So what are the nerves like?
You You think you could get hurt?
Or Oh no, I mean no, the nerves are you think you might drown or
get in a really dangerous situation and also that

(57:12):
pressure's on you to go out in one hour to go catch 4 waves.
You know that that contest you get to surf twice for an hour
each and you get 4 waves. So, you know, you want to put on
a good showing and you want to honor the people that put you
into the event. And and you know, I also had a
little bit of funny nerves because Brock passed away the

(57:34):
week before and Brock was reallylike Brock was Brock was a guy
who showed Shane and myself and all of our group of friends all
had to surf big waves and how not to be scared.
And, you know, well, as Brock would put it, just don't be a,
you know, so, you know, Brock just made fun of us as kids
because we didn't surf as big a ways as him.
And so Brock was the king of ourgroup of guys.

(57:57):
And, you know, Brock led the pack.
He was, he was always the guy running the show and showing us
how to do it. And he would drive his truck
faster than you and he would surf away bigger than you.
And he would go and fight anybody.
And he would, you know, Brock was completely fearless as far
as I know. Like he's probably the most

(58:17):
fearless person I've ever met inmy life.
He became a stunt guy, worked onalmost all of Brian Grazer's
films for the last 10 or 15 years.
In fact, you could probably spothim if you really were, if you
could, if you could really tell who's who in movies, you could
probably spot Brock in quite a few movies like The Da Vinci
Code and blah, blah. He's a, he actually has a line

(58:41):
in the movie in The Da Vinci Code where he's a, a French cop
and he's speaking French. He's like, I didn't know what I
was doing. He goes, I don't even think I
said the thing, right. But yeah, Brock was Brock was
our hero, man. He was just like the most
fearless guy I ever met in my life with absolutely everything.
And and so, you know, he he passed away just the week

(59:04):
before. And so it was an exciting week
for us that a swell was coming. And we call that the Brock
swell. It was also a sad week leading
up to that. And I was kind of nervous
because I was just like, you know, I just want to, I don't
know. I was just feeling a little bit,
I was feeling, feeling pretty mortal last week after Brock

(59:27):
passed away. So yeah, it was kind of just a,
it was a funny week of emotions for me.
Where's the most dangerous placeyou've ever surfed and what made
it dangerous? Most dangerous place I've ever
surfed. I would probably say it's
either. It's either Pipeline or or

(59:50):
Mavericks up at Half Moon Bay. I would say pipeline because a
number of things that shallow, it's an intense wave.
Quite a number of people have died there.
Drownings or getting knocked out, hitting your head on the
reef and then drowning obviously.
In fact, a friend of mine got knocked unconscious and
basically drowned this winter and was saved by by a guy who

(01:00:13):
saw him in the water and had that kind up in there.
He would have like, I would say 99.9%.
For sure have died luckily this guy just happened to see him and
grab him and and had swim fins on and was able to keep him
above water and get him to the beach.
Half Moon Bay Mavericks. There's been I know a couple a

(01:00:35):
couple of my friends have died there.
How drowning 2 two friends of mine drowned there.
Mark Fu in 94 and signed Maloskyjust a couple of years back a
few years ago. And explain what a maverick is.
Matt Well, Mavericks is the surfspot.
It's just a big giant wave that kind of just it's it's way

(01:00:58):
bigger than pretty much all the ways around it.
Just the way that the swell hitsthere and the way the bottom is
contoured, but also that there'salso rocks.
There's been multiple great white attacks there.
There's been two or three great white attacks there.
So it's just it's got every element of fear.
The water's cold. It's it's one of the most

(01:01:18):
intense ways you'll ever see There's and now there's a lot of
people surfing it. So you have to deal with the
crowd issue Pipeline. You also are dealing with the
crowd issue and that kind of changes your choices.
And you know, there's been a lotof guys injured by other
people's boards or running into people or, you know, sometimes
when there's that many people, you get a little nervous and you
kind of make the wrong decision.You don't want to hurt someone

(01:01:40):
else and you don't want to get hurt by the by someone else.
So it like the whole decision process, changes quite a bit
when that's the case. How badly do you hurt yourself
when you knocked yourself out inFrance not too long ago?
Yeah, I got knocked out. I laugh about it now, but I, I
had to use all my brain power tonot get post traumatic stress

(01:02:01):
disorder afterwards because it was kind of scary.
I, I almost had two wave hold down like I came up and the
second wave broke on me as I came up and I thought it was
kind of funny because the waves weren't very big and I basically
had a two wave hold down to wavehold down.
And surfing is kind of like it'skind of a badge of honor.
You know, once you've had a two wave hold down, you've had a
really heavy wipeout. But this one was kind of funny

(01:02:24):
because the waves were real close together.
So it wasn't really like a proper two wave hold down.
But my very next wave I took offon and I did a turn off the top
of the wave and the wave just kind of bent away from me.
So my board kind of got air and flew out of the water and I
just, I just judged it wrong andI over rotated in the turn and
when I fell, I fell backwards and my, my board separated from

(01:02:45):
my feet and went below me and I fell backwards and hit my head
and got knocked out instantly and just hit my head myself
super hard back here. And I, I woke up unconscious.
I woke up from being unconscious.
I was underwater still. And yeah, I don't know.
I just woke up and, and it was kind of like I was in the
twilight zone. I felt like my whole vision in

(01:03:08):
life was like this tiny little tube of light and all of a
sudden kind of like just was getting wider and wider in my
head. My ears are ringing and stuff.
And I realized I was underwater,I guess because, you know, just
for whatever reason, you have like a mammalian reflex to hold
your breath when you're underwater.
So I like, I guess as I came to,I realized I was underwater.

(01:03:30):
So I didn't breathe and I just started swimming and I kept
swimming and swimming, but I didn't know which way was up.
And I swam so far. I was starting to get more, I
was starting to kind of like become conscious more and more,
but I was still like felt like Iwas dreaming.
And I realized I, gosh, I've swim so far I've swam like 6 or

(01:03:51):
7 strokes and I haven't hit air.I don't know where I'm going.
And my hand kind of, I felt my hand just barely kind of go
above the water. So I kind of reached my face in
that direction and try to take abreath and I kind of breathe
half foam and half air. And then I came up and I, I just
was, I started going into shock really fast and I just grabbed

(01:04:11):
my board and turned towards shore.
And the next wave hit me up towards the beach And luckily I
was close to shore. And as I hit the shore, I fell
off my board and the next coupleways, like one, one or two waves
rolled me kind of like I just laying in the water kind of
getting rolled by waves. But I knew I was safe at that
point. And then I kind of, there was a
really bizarre feeling because with the contest in town,

(01:04:34):
there's a lot of fans, Sir, fansthere and stuff.
And so there was this about 20 yards behind me, there was this
really high seawall and there was about 100 French people on
there. And they were like yelling my
name and taking pictures and stuff.
And nobody realized that I was injured.
And so it was really, that's whyI say it's like a twilight zone
because I was like, I was like in kind of going into serious

(01:04:55):
shock and, you know, potentiallycould have just drowned right
then. And, and, and so I'm on the
beach kind of like absorbing like this whole thing.
And there's people like yelling my name and taking pictures and
I'm like, I'm like laying on thebeach.
I'm like laying there kind of completely startled at what just

(01:05:15):
happened, realizing I'm really lucky.
And then I took my leash off, had my board.
Luckily I had a board leash on my connected to my board, but I,
I was sitting on the beach and Iwas on dry sand and I took my
leash off and I got really scared.
I realized like, OK, now I'm, I'm definitely in shock because
when I, I took my leash off, like the surfboard was kind of
like, I guess like my lifeline in the water, you know, that was

(01:05:36):
the one thing that was going to make me float or have somebody
find me if I, if I, if I was still knocked out.
And so when I took it off, I, even though I was on dry sand, I
got really scared and I was like, oh man, I'm so messed up
right now. So I kind of, I kind of, I had
sand all over me because I've been like rolling around the
sand and stuff. So I kind of waded back into the
water and washed myself off. And then I sat down the beach

(01:05:56):
for about 3 or 4 minutes. My buddy came in, my friend Ross
came in from surfing and and he was kind of like, oh, you done
now? And he looked at me and he goes,
man, are you OK? And I'm like, no, I just that I
explained what happened to him. He's like, man, your eyes are
like kind of rolling back in your head.
And I was like, yeah, I just gotso knocked out.
And so we walked up through thiscrowd of people.

(01:06:18):
And as soon as I got up by this up the stairs, all these people
were grabbing me and trying to take pictures of me and stuff.
And I just got, I started yelling at people because I was
just like, giveaway. Does everyone get the hell away
from me? Nobody.
You know, they didn't know, right?
They had no idea that something bad just happened to me.
And so I felt kind of bad, but at the same time, I was like in
shock. So I didn't know what's going
on. Is that the closest you've been

(01:06:39):
to ever drowning or? Did he really hurt?
I got knocked out once when I was 19 for a longer period of
time. I think this one was only for a
few seconds or maybe just like it might have been instant I
don't really know. A friend of mine was on the
beach and saw me fall and said he almost ran into the water to
go get me but he saw me pop up so it must only been a couple
seconds that I was under. But any even one second

(01:07:04):
unconscious underwater is a bad second.
But I had one where I was unconscious, I think for about
30 seconds in Java one time whenI was 19, and I got amnesia from
that. Actually, I had amnesia for
about 12 hours, which was prettyfrightening, especially when
you're on a boat in the middle of nowhere and you don't know
where you are, how long you've been there.

(01:07:24):
Did you think that was? I mean, that could have been it.
Yeah, that could have been it, but you know it wasn't.
How about closest call with a shark?
Obviously the footage of Mick from a while back's pretty
amazing. Yeah, I, I think the call, I

(01:07:44):
think the thing that happened with Mick was a close call for
me too, I'm guessing because. You were there only moments
before. Yeah, I was.
I was right to where Mick was. I surfed right where Mick was
for an hour, up until about two minutes before that happened to
Mick. And I had been in the heat with
him for half an hour. I lost.
So he went on shore to kind of get some drinks and get reset
for the final. And I stayed out surfing for

(01:08:05):
that half an hour break. So I was surfing right there
that whole time and. To give context, he's just in
the water and all of a sudden. Nick and all of a sudden, no to
give context, yeah, he. Shark pops up.
He paddles out for his heat, himand Julian Wilson.
Julian, the heat starts, me and a couple.
There's only like 3 or 4 of us in the water at the time.

(01:08:27):
Maybe 5 people had surfed in that half an hour period of
time, and me and one of my friends came in right as we got
to the beach. It was about a couple minutes
into the heat starting right as we hit the sand.
I just heard, I just saw that the boats and jet skis going
over in the lineup and I couldn't hear what was
happening. I couldn't, I didn't know what's
happening, but I said to my friend, there's only one reason

(01:08:51):
boats would ever go in the lineup during heat and that's
got to be a shark attack. And so we ran up the beach and
sure enough, that's what they were screaming and yelling.
And I mean, by that time we knewMick was fine and everything was
OK. This is probably 2 minutes after
it happened. Within a minute and a half, two
minutes, we knew Mick was OK. And so everyone was kind of
just, gosh, that was close. But then we sat there and

(01:09:12):
watched the footage. And then there's the shock of
afterwards, you know, mixed shock afterwards.
And, and you know that I mean, awhole world watching something
live. Like, what are the chances?
What are the chances that wasn'tin some random heat in the
beginning of the contest that maybe a few people are watching
online or something, but not like everyone focused on the
final in this contest in in at Jeffrey's Bay where there's been

(01:09:36):
a there's been a number of sharkattacks.
Let's let's be honest, there's been quite a few shark attacks
there over the years, but never during a contest.
And what are the chances it's going to be one of the two guys?
I mean, there's other guys, there's twenty other guys
surfing down the point somewhere.
And the other weird thing about it was that the the director in
the booth at the time said get aone shot close up on Mick.

(01:09:57):
And right when they went to thatone shot close up in the live
thing is when the shark thing happened.
It's just so bizarre. I mean, it was all man.
Mick had such a crazy year. That poor guy.
He had such an awful strange year last year.
Now it's been reported his wife and him have split up.

(01:10:18):
But that was happening a year ago.
He had the shark incident. He just narrowly lost the world
title a day after his brother died as well.
All these things, all these terrible things happening to
Mick all in one year. I mean, you got to you got to
commend the guy's resilience for, you know, he's just a good,

(01:10:40):
happy dude. And he's just gone through some
really tough stuff. And last year, yeah, I'm sure it
will make him stronger. And Mick's already one of the
best guys I know. But man, what a what a radical
year to go through. Surfing in the Olympics.
It's been it's being considered for the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
What do you think the likelihoodis that it happens?

(01:11:01):
It's been talked about for years.
You know, there's been a lot of lobbying going on with some
people in the surf world and talking to the IOC.
And I know as early as 1984 theycame down and watched the World
Championships in Huntington. Some officials from the IOC.
It's interesting for Japan because there's a pretty strong
surf culture there. Actually.
People might not realize there'ssome great surf in Japan.

(01:11:22):
I think a wave pool in Japan makes a lot of sense because,
and I'm not trying to pitch like, OK, well let's just run
the wave pool thing and run it in the Olympics.
But it would make sense because it gives you, you can have the
exact start times and you know how to control your field and
that kind of thing. Japan has great, amazing surf on
its day, but it's a little inconsistent and especially in

(01:11:45):
the summer months is that it's aSummer Olympics, isn't it?
Yeah. So this the summer, summertime
in Japan can have really slow surf or no surf.
It can it can be really flat forperiods of time.
That's that's sort of the that'sjust kind of the rule of thumb
with the East Coast of any country because all the storms
are going West to east. So mostly they're taking waves

(01:12:09):
away from you instead of sendingwaves towards you.
In the summer, summertime, you don't have much storm activity
anyways. But yeah, a wave pool in Japan
would make sense because when you think about Japan, you think
about engineering, you think about technology and all those
sorts of things, and you know. And craftsmanship is really
important craftsmanship. Is totally important to
Japanese, SO it would be it would be really interesting if

(01:12:31):
if a wave pool was a was a way to display surfing the first
time in in the Olympics. So I mean, since you brought
that up, what's the process involved with actually pitching
them on your technology? No, I don't, I really don't know
the process because I I'm not one of those people lobbying to
try to get in the Olympics. But you know, if it were to
happen, I'm, I'm all for it. But if and if it doesn't,
that's, that's OK with me too. But.

(01:12:52):
If it does, are you there competing?
That's yeah, that's a good question.
I mean, how could you pass off? I got.
Four years away you'd be. 48 ButI mean, how could you pass up
the yeah time it's finally in the Olympics.
I think if yeah, I think if we finally do get into the Olympics

(01:13:13):
and, and I'm physically fine, ifI don't have injuries and, and I
get chosen by the states to, to surf in that, it'd be a huge
honour. I think especially at that age,
it would be a huge honour and it'd be a, that'd be a great way
for me to say, you know, I was in that first one or I was part
of that first one when they, I don't think it would be an

(01:13:33):
official sport. I think it'd be like a display
sport or whatever, but it'd be afun thing to do.
The single most satisfying moment from your career to date
would be what? Gosh, it would be single most
satisfying be when I won my 6th world title in 98 for sure.

(01:13:58):
That was because it shouldn't have happened.
It it was like, I don't know, the stars aligned and somehow
everything came together perfectly both personally and
emotionally and physically and competitively.
All, everything just aligned forme on this one day, and it was
the most, probably most rewarding day of my life on a

(01:14:22):
lot of levels. If it was just a competition, it
wouldn't mean so much, but there's a lot of stuff going on
personally for me too, that was amazing and wonderful.
And so that that would all have to be a part of that.
But yeah, competitively that wasthat was the the peak of it all
for me in a lot of ways. Thank you very much.

(01:14:44):
Thanks. Thanks a lot.
That's all for my chat with Kelly Slater.
To see more content from my timewith the surfing legend, go to
youtube.com/graham Vensinger. You can see Kelly take us on a
tour of his fashion headquartersand we also got out on the water
to surf some waves, or in my case, attempt to.
Before you go, if you get a chance, give us a rating and

(01:15:06):
review. Thanks again for listening.